


You will have to go slowly

by Anythingtoasted



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 08:32:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anythingtoasted/pseuds/Anythingtoasted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>gen. 8x17 coda. Castiel. <i>"Castiel knows about a group of people; anarchists; who thought cities were a disease. Castiel feels differently."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	You will have to go slowly

**Author's Note:**

> _"You will have to go slowly. You will have to learn everything all over again."_ **Jay McInerney, 'Bright Lights, Big City'**

Castiel knows about a group of people; anarchists; who thought cities were a disease.

It’s evening. The angel tablet sits snug in his bag, thumping gently against his back with each step he takes. It’s a pleasant weight, comforting; he doesn’t mind the dig of it in his spine, nor the trouble of carrying it.

This group – small, but vocal – thought men living in such close quarters was unnatural; fetid. A stinking, steaming mass of no better than rat-food, than gangrenous flesh. They described these places as cesspits,  _holes_ where the effluence of human life was dropped, like an animal discarding its waste as it walked, never to turn back.

Castiel feels differently.

He notes the shapes of early evening revellers, slurred drunkenly against each other’s sides. A couple, ahead, tilt into each other; link hands, the woman laughing, loud – the man with his nose pressed against her cheek. They don’t notice Castiel – or, if they do, they don’t look at him. He’s invisible here, as transient as smoke, camouflaged in his conspicuousness. The trenchcoat, the suit, mark him out as a businessman; the loose, cloth backpack marks him out as a wanderer. The twain are not supposed to meet; and so eyes flicker over him and leave him, bodies evade him in the street. He is moses, parting a red sea of people whose faces barely register his own.

And yet.

It smells like  _life_ here, like carbon. Like the breath inside his lungs and like smoke; like exhaust and foliage, like fresh-cut grass and open sewers.

He treads his way through the middle of the street, rapt with his own aloneness. The voices of his brothers and sisters aren’t with him, now; and Dean’s voice - his prayers have ceased. He is alone with himself, and it is strange to him. He’s never felt this before; this solitude, this separateness. Sometimes he misses the voices of his brothers, his sisters; sometimes he misses Dean’s desperate, aching words, muttered hesitant, reluctant, as if at the shell of his ear. In heaven he could feel the breaths between them; halting, lost.  _Come home, Cas. Come home._

He has to work out where home  _is,_ first.

He treads a loose line; veers from the centre of the road and ascends the sidewalk, his shoes dully thudding. Along the lines of this street – apart from clubs and bars – there are Laundromats, sweet with soap; there is a bakery, tiny and nondescript, dirty. It is early in the night, yet – barely six – and Castiel – his hands pressed against the glass, leaving smudged marks behind – wants to go inside. He realises, with a jolt, that he  _can._

Walking in is easy enough; a bell rings overhead, the quaint door swinging forwards to permit him enter. It’s a small place – dark, just about to close. It’s empty, but for Castiel, and a woman mopping in the back corner. She raises her head at the ring of the bell.

Castiel walks with unsure feet to the counter; a long cabinet covered in a half-dome of glass, and underneath it, rows and rows; plates and trays and stands; are filled with food, in its various forms.

For a moment, he is stilled. He’s never wanted food before; never tasted it, but for the burgers all that time ago, and the stench of meat, even now, makes nausea throb in his throat, dully.

But these. Golden-brown, warm, soft; trails of icing on some, sugar-white; the pastries nestled side-by-side like neat-wrapped parcels. Bread, which would spring back at a touch; neatly plaited rolls, large loaves, all kneaded by hand. The jewel-red glaze of tarts and cherries; the sinuous curves of twists, of things he can’t quite remember the names of.

He realises he’s staring; the woman has moved and is standing behind the counter across from him, regarding him with a steely eye. “We’re closing.” She says, and Castiel looks up at her, his palms wide, pressed against the glass. He feels caught in the act; furtively staring at the rows and rows of cakes and pastries. He tries to smile at her. Put her at ease.

“Sorry.” He says. “Can I choose something? I’ll leave right away.”

She looks at him, careful; the picture he cuts makes people cautious of him. Makes them shy from his hands. “Alright.” She concedes, and he grins, grateful; she smiles warily back. “What do you want?”

He dithers. The choice seems enormous; Castiel has no idea what he likes, what he would want. The pastries, whilst beautiful, seem rich for his palate, too much a baptism of fire; the cakes much the same, and would crumble in his too-firm hands.

He points, eventually, to what he believes will be the simplest; bread. Biblical, though he’s not seeing it as Communion, now. “If that’s alright.” He says. She nods – pulls out a pair of plastic tongs, grabs the bread roll, round, compressing under the clutch of the tool. She drops it into a paper bag – tells him how much it is, and he pays with what change he can gather from Jimmy’s pockets. It’s not expensive.

When he leaves the bakery it is as if he’s entered a different world altogether; the sun, dipping low, is barely visible any more. The air is cold and hesitant.

Castiel walks a little, nervous of what he has clutched in his hand. It is heavier, even, than the tablet; more pressing. He realises after awhile that he’s gripping the bag too, too hard; worrying a hole in it with his fingers.

He stops, on the sidewalk, several paces from the bakery. He lifts his hand slowly – adjusts the bag on his back, so it won’t fall – and with both hands he opens the lips of the paper bag. He peers inside.

It’s warm; it breathes its scent on his face, flour and wheat. In grappling with the bag – forcing his hand inside – he nearly drops it, but hangs on. 

With the soft, round roll in his hand, he is acutely aware of  _everything;_ the people passing by, the city’s smell. His strange, deliberate loneliness. 

With both hands held around it, fingers pressing dents into its surface, Castiel lifts the bread to his mouth; takes his first voluntary bite.

And it is nothing.

And it is everything.

He chews; swallows; tears well unexpectedly in his eyes.

The street is empty; he, its only occupant, blinks in the glare of the waning sun, the bread still held in his hand.

He lifts it again; takes another bite, and it is sweet, it is thick. Liquid – a drop – rolls from his eye. Clings to the lines of his face; settles against the side of his nose. He realises, dimly, he is breathing, ragged; he is  _crying_ in the street, his breaths coming shallow and hot.

He moves on, the next day, bag slung over his shoulder. Move on, move on.

He knew a group of people, once, who thought a lot of things were dirty; were depraved.

Castiel, he has realised, is different.


End file.
